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Just in time for the dog days of summer, I am embarking on a (very) mini reunion tour for "Memoir: A History." Specifically, I will be on memoir panels on two consecutive nights in hip New York City venues. On Sunday, August 1, I'll be appearing at KGB Bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where I can retrace my grandfather's footsteps. My father's father, Sam, whom I never knew, apparently ran a steam bath there in the early decades of the last century. I will look for his ghost among the hipsters. As a further instance of synchronicity, some Yagoda relatives long maintained that Genrikh Yagoda, the feared head of the Soviet secret police under Stalin, was a distant relation. I have no further comment on that. The next ...read more